Water Quality Management Plan (WQMP)

The Water Division maintains a Water Quality Management Plan (WQMP), also known as the “208 Plan,”
in accordance with Section 208 of the federal Clean Water Act. The WQMP is an inventory of all permitted municipal
and industrial point source dischargers in Arkansas that contain water quality-based permit limits such as
Carbonaceous Biochemical Oxygen Demand5 (CBOD5), Biochemical Oxygen Demand5 (BOD5), Ammonia-Nitrogen3 (NH3-N),
Dissolved Oxygen (DO), and effluent flow. The WQMP also contains additional information associated with each
facility, such as permit number, location, design flow, and receiving stream name and critical flow. The plan
is updated as needed to reflect the most recent effluent limitations imposed in newly issued, modified, or
renewed National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits. The WQMP is also updated to include
Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL) approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and associated
individual wasteload allocations from the TMDL.

The plan is updated as necessary, with the procedure generally consisting of the following steps:

Sending the proposed WQMP update to EPA for technical acceptance.

Receiving EPA technical acceptance of the proposed WQMP update.

Sending the proposed WQMP update to public notice. This public notice can be included in the public notice of the
draft permit or as a separate public notice.

Governor certification of the updates to the WQMP.

Receiving formal EPA approval of certified update.

Links to status of proposed and final revisions to the Water Quality Management Plan

Updates to the Water Quality Management Plan (208 Plan) are required when changes occur in NPDES permit discharge
limits for new, modified, or terminated permits.